Argonian in Skyrim
by Lachivo
Summary: Pages yanked out of the Dragonborn's journal. It jumps in time a fair bit, from early in the game to much later, and from more to less to more peaceful times again.
1. 13th of Sun's Dawn, Year 201 aO

Skyrim is a cold land. That's just about one of the first realizations that one must come to about the Nords' home, and it's one we all have to deal with at some point. For most people it isn't more of a problem than anything else, but for _Saxhleel_ - Argonians - that's actually one of the really frequent killers. We have to keep fighting it, every day. Whether we use magic, muscles or a big bonfire, that struggle is what most of our energy goes to in a day, generally.

We all have strategies. Me, I move a lot. Always busy, always working, never sitting too still for too much of the time. The harder labor the better, as far as I'm concerned. Moving helps. So does sleeping, if I'm in Windhelm and the Assemblage is hot enough. We all sleep for more than half the day, in loosely organized shifts. Skooma helps as well - gives you a rush that lets you shiver like you mean it, warms you right up. We water it down so we don't get hooked, but some of us are in the trap anyway. Stands-In-Shallows is in pretty deep. He's the thinnest of us, but because of the skooma he's never really cold. He's too old and set in his ways to listen when we say it's bad for him. Neetrenaza thinks we're all crazy, but he keeps himself going no less than the rest of us. He acts as if he doesn't notice the weather. To this day, I think he's alive by pure stubbornness. You could say the same of Shahvee, but she handles it a little more elegantly. She's too cheerful to let the cold bother her - she just accepts it as a part of her life she can't change, and appreciates the Assemblage fires all the more in the evening when she goes to sleep. That attitude has a lot to be said for it, if you can pull it off.

Learning how to swim here was hard. When you jump into a stream through cakes of sleet and ice and feel the initial cold-shock hit you, you just have to power on through. Get your tail moving, kick with your arms and legs like a human, make sure you get the deep muscles going so you stay warm for longer. We don't get frostbite like the humans, but we sometimes pass out in the freezing water, and the others have to pull out whoever didn't make it to the surface this time.

I know I make it sound miserable, and I suppose it would be for most others. But don't misunderstand - I think the snow is beautiful. I think the mountains are wonders, and climbing them is the best feeling in the world. The swamps are fantastic, and there isn't a trace of salt in the water. Really, most nature is nice if you can just appreciate the good points. Shahvee taught me that.

I like the Assemblage, cramped though it is. We keep each other warm, we cook hot meals, we have fun and talk jel and tell stories of Black Marsh and other places. They took to me right away because of all the traveling I had done. They were even good enough to bare with my halting jel, and teach me some more of the old language. For an Argonian who has never even seen a Hist, nor really lived with others like him since he was a hatchling, that's special. As I write, there is a holiday going on in Windhelm called the Feast for the Dead, in which the nords celebrate Ysgramor and his 500 companions, and how they made the way for the first human empire by driving out the elves. It's a solemn occasion for some people. For others, it's just another feast day. For the argonians, it means that they get a day off, which gives them time for other things. Mostly, we just sit about soaking up the warmth. The others need it - they work hard, and deserve whatever rest they can get.

Another thing one can appreciate about Skyrim is its people. Nobody taught me that, and I have yet to teach it to any of the others, because I think they would call me crazy, but I actually like the Skyrim people - or rather how they deal with each other. They have their priorities straight. There isn't much love lost for Argonians, true, but this land is hard, and everyone is needed. Peoples are forced together by hardship, and when the winter gets cold enough, and you offer your hands and back, nobody notices the scales. I know that because I've been to so many of the holds around Skyrim, and the common trait was pretty much that if you could make yourself useful, they'd be willing to overlook all kinds of things. Even the fact that you are an escaped convict, sentenced for the executioner's block.

Jarl Balgruuf the Greater of Whiterun. He didn't care what I had done. He didn't care where I was from. I could kill the dragons that were plaguing his home, and so I was a friend, and an honored member of his community, yeah, I know, I'm still giggling. He even gave me an honorary title. Thane. That means I'm a court retainer, and nobody has jurisdiction over me but the Jarl. If you think that sounds like I'm a henchman, you're right. I know I should be more appreciative of this, but a title doesn't keep me warm in winter, and it doesn't feed me or my friends. As much as I respect the jarl for taking me in, I'd like to tell him where to put his title. He believes it's important, though. Maybe that makes all the difference. I wouldn't know really - I've never had anything that changed value depending on how much I believed in it.

Then again, what's gold, if not that?

The only constant in my life. Gold. If you've never been poor, you don't understand. Being turned away from a dozen places and going for too long without sleep because nobody will let you in, stealing food to survive because it's all you know how to do, and so on and so on. That's all common when you're poor. You have to degrade yourself further and further, sell everything you own, take jobs nobody else want, all so you can earn half of what somebody without scales would have earned. I've watched proud people being treated like dirt, pack animals or sex toys by someone who, if there was any justice, would be reduced to the same nothing some day. But there isn't, so they have oceans of money and power, and do whatever they want, and nobody seems to notice or care. Yeah, I'm bitter. Shahvee tells me I should let that go. So does Scouts-Many-Marshes. But I can't ignore how we live - only our dignity keeps us from living in complete squalor. As much as I said I like the Assemblage, I know what it is. I've seen places like that before, back in Hammerfell. All it needs is chains on the walls and guards outside. We are wretched creatures, and it isn't our fault. That makes makes me angry, and I'm not altogether that pleasant when I'm angry. I won't apologize for doing something about it every now and again.

The others don't think of it as slave quarters, but they know that I do. Neetrenaza tried to take the talk with me, get me to tell them all why I was so frustrated, but I put it off. You'd think he'd agree with me, but he doesn't want to get bitter. He has been fighting that, he says, because it eats you up from the inside and makes you _seljcil_, which doesn't translate well, but it's kind of like unpleasant, only it effects everything you do. I got the message, and I told him as much, but I'll be damned if I can let it go. Every time I see the Assemblage, I'm reminded. It isn't right. I know there are so many good people here in north - I think that's why this is so jarring. There is no just explanation for why the Argonians aren't allowed to live inside the gates of Windhelm. It isn't because of the dark elves - if we're miserable enough together, we won't care who we are as long as we keep each other alive. And elves have just as many blood fewds between themselves as with us, if not more. Yet you don't see the Gray Quarter being torn apart by street battles. The dark elves hate it as much as we do, and they can do as little about it as we can. And, generally, they're much better at carrying grudges than Argonians are. Call me naive, but that proves something to me. You should think that would prove something to those puffed-up, bigoted Nords up in the Palace of Kings too. I hope, with every ounce of my soul, I hope that there is someone, somewhere up there who makes sure this happens, or ignores it where they should have helped solve it. Because if there isn't one in particular, that means they're all like that. That, or not a single one of them can be bothered with Argonians, dark elves, or anybody else that isn't rich enough to tell them otherwise.

I try not to talk about all of this too much, since it makes me so mad. Sometimes I can't help but think about it, though, and I work myself up until I want to knife the first nobleman I see. I want it so bad I almost shake. That would be the point where Scouts-Many-Marshes would come over to sit with me, if I was back in the Assemblage. He always does that - tries to get me to talk about something else, speaks jel because he knows I like that, tries to make me feel better. Shahvee always follows, but not before Scouts-Many-Marshes has told her it's alright. I can tell that she's scared of me, though. I don't know if you've ever been feared by those who you don't want to scare. If you haven't, I can tell you it's unpleasant. I always try to make it up to them later, usually by bringing firewood and food, or telling funny stories. I don't want to put a strain on the place, if I can help it. I don't know them quite that well, and I'm just passing through, after all.

They know that as well. We're acquaintances, in a way - friends in another. But, really, we know that any of us might be gone tomorrow. They certainly know that I'll leave soon enough. I may or may not come back, as fate wills it, but if I do, I know I have a place to rest my head outside the Windhelm walls. They even gave me a key. I got Breezehome later, back in Whiterun, but somehow I never stopped thinking of the Assemblage as home. It's a lot of things, good and bad, but it's a community first and foremost. A tribe consisting of whoever happens to be around. I like that, and I don't think I'll find that anywhere but in cold Skyrim. This place fosters that kind of people. In spite of everything, we stick together, we help each other survive, we fight the world together and every night, when we go to sleep, we've won. There are so few who understand that. To find a whole place of them has been good for me. Maybe I've been good for them, too. I like to think so.


	2. 2nd of First Seed, Year 201 aO

"You know, you might have an easier time of it if you weren't so particular about not killing these people."

There is a really good reason I don't like dunmers. Don't get me wrong - as a whole, dunmers are unlikeable tossers who's finest virtues include totally lacking morals and summoning daedra. But that's not the reason I don't like them - I'm morally questionable myself, though admittedly I've never done much summoning. No, I don't like dunmers because they use their harsh history as a kind of well from which to gather energy for whatever project they're currently working on - ostensibly to take their minds of the miseries of their lost empire or some such. They put on this air of a wronged people who are only just scraping by, with their once-glorious society in shambles and an entire culture in mourning. And I'm sure that generally, people appreciate their drive to succeed in their endeavors, their uncompromising air, and their realistic mindsets (see about their morals). Generally, people respect this cultural mourning period, and sympathize with it to some extent. Every race of man or mer you care to name has tragedy in it, and though few wallow in it as heavily as dunmers do, I think, generally, people understand and appreciate this need for success and realism in the face of tragically losing your imperial dreams.

Generally, people aren't argonians. I snorted a noncommittal sound at her without looking up, and she kept prattling on.

"I think we should just go and put a dagger through all of their backs. You know we can do it. Hell, you've done it often enough yourself, unless your reputation is nothing but hot air. I can even see how we'd do it, which direction we'd enter from... I'd do it myself if there weren't so damn many of them. Your plan overcomplicates something that could become much simpler if you'd just let me take the lead."

There was no real menace in her voice as she said this. I knew that she was serious, but I also knew that she wouldn't like this job half as well if there weren't some kind of criticism she could level, and some kind of injustice that she would have to heroically bare with. Gods, but I don't like dunmers.

"We kill the bounty, and then we're done. You knew the terms when you signed on with me, Sheralia. If you can't do it, just stay and watch for anybody who might try to escape, until I give the signa-"

"I never said I couldn't do it, lizard." I could almost feel her glaring at the back of my head.

"Good. Then we don't have a problem."

Now I could almost feel her sneering at it. We went over the plans again, pouring over an old plan of Deepfallow mine that she had pulled from the steward's old coffers. I don't think anybody but office clerks has ever looked at it, and then only once, so they knew which unimportant box of documents to put it in. Supposedly, you can tell how important someone is by how much paper they need to run their operation. At 20 septims the roll, I can see how people would get that impression. One thing the Empire brought with them to every province, along with their septims and their language, were scribes and the need for them. Apparently, before the Empire, it was far from common that everyone could read. That seems to blow people's minds these days, but, really, you need go no further than Black Marsh for it to still be like that.

Anyway, I had been planning the hit on Deepfallow for a good long time, but things had kept me occupied and I kept looking for excuses to put it off. I am a decent bounty hunter, but there are limits to how much I am willing to take on all at once. Deepfallow had recently been taken over by mages, and one of their first moves was to throw a huge barrier around the mine and the above-ground dig site, plus however many other places deeper inside the mine. It complicated matters, because it meant I needed outside help, and there's only a handful of people I trust enough to take them on a bounty with me. Even fewer happen to be mages. One of these days, I am going to the College in Winterhold to learn the trade. I am tired of being hampered by my lacking knowledge on the subject.

Along with mages came atronachs, and along with that came the need for stealth. I couldn't just go barging in and kill everyone in sight, because if you give mages time to prepare, they will flatten you long before you get within stabbing reach of them. Best for them not to see you at all. The longer you keep them in the dark, the longer before they start throwing wards and spells and summoning fiends to complicate an already needlessly complicated situation. That is also why I choose to only kill the bounty, and nobody else if at all possible. Bounty's the only one I really need to alert in order to get the job done. Less of a mess that way.

I understood from the steward that there were a number of people taken prisoner in the mines, either to mine malachite or to do magical experiments on - they weren't sure which. Information like that raises the important problem of whether these people are in any condition to make a quick getaway. Hopefully, they're just mining. They may be working them to death, in which case they won't be, or they may be resting them up at night so they last longer, in which case they may be able to make the run if I clear them a way out. If they're experimental test subjects, there's no telling what state they'll be in. This is the part of the hit that might go wrong; when you don't know what to plan for, the only thing you can do is plan for the ideal scenario. It's far from great, but it means that if you get lucky, you're in a position where you can take advantage of your luck. In other words, if the only way you can pull it off is if the prisoners are in good health, then the prisoners are in good health. End of story. Sheralia disagreed.

"That's utterly ridiculous."

"Then what do you suggest? We leave them to rot?"

"Firstly, we haven't the foggiest if there is even anything to save - there might be nothing but giblets left of those people, and we'll have to search the whole bloody place to be sure!"

She had been taught cyrodilic by a breton. There was no mistaking that brogue. I wondered briefly if she had been privately schooled, in which case what was she doing working bounties? Why was she in Skyrim, if she could afford that? Who cared?

"We can make some pretty safe guesses as to where they are. Only so many places with enough space to keep people locked up in that place."

"Not if they're stacked like logs, or dropped down a hole."

"If they are, the job becomes much simpler."

"That's assuming, of course, that they haven't made any new additions to the mine since this chart was drawn, which is looking pretty bloody unlikely considering how old this thing is. How do you propose we learn where the people are held, anyway? Look through the walls?"

"You said yourself that you wanted to go through the whole place and kill everything that moved. How were you planning on doing that?"

"There hasn't been born the guard that can see me when I don't wish to be seen."

"Good. Then you know how we'll find out. Case it first, then enter if we think it's worth it, split if we don't. You can do it, I can do it, there is no reason to engage them if we can just go around and get the job done as easily that way."

"Alright then. But if we come across their mistress, we kill her and get out. We don't hang about after that, prisoners or no prisoners. Clear?"

I ended up agreeing. She made that condition out of spite, which is a terrible reason to do anything, let alone plan around, and I really wish I hung around more mages, because this one's looking more insane by the minute. Her reputation was solid enough, which any mercenary will tell you is vital, but I was beginning to think that she had paid off a bard somewhere. Or maybe we just had different ideas of professionalism. I never learned, nor cared enough to.

We planned for the hit to be at night, close to dawn, because it increased the chance of them being asleep. Most likely, they'd have lost all concept of night and day down in the mine, and just sleep in shifts when the need arose. But, again, we might get lucky.

We shall see how it turns out.


	3. 3rd of First Seed, Year 201 aO

The wizards have collapsed the mine. We were not fast enough to avoid being seen, and we had to fight them toe to toe. I have so many burns I feel like my scales are sizzling.

I don't know how they saw me, but that hardly matters now. I have been looking for a way out, but they've sealed this entire room shut behind quite a few leagues of stone. I'd have applauded their skill in setting the trap, if they hadn't made themselves rely on a certain side corridor to get themselves out. Our plan was to beat the wizards back until we had them secured in the antechamber to the main vault, which involved blocking that very corridor using water from the river above and rock from the corridor itself. That part of the plan had worked swimmingly.

In retrospect, we should have thought of it as well. There were just so many tunnels, we thought for sure there would be a way out for us once we actually got in. I shall never again underestimate the paranoia of a magic-user.  
Surely, we thought, surely we had struck gold with this antechamber, which forms a shallow bowl before the main chamber that we can force the mages and their pets into. Surely, we thought, they couldn't secure the whole antechamber without splitting off from the group and making themelves easy targets. Surely, we thought, they wouldn't collapse the whole damn mine. Nobody's that crazy. Actually, as a general word of advice, whenever you find yourself thinking those very words, stop for a moment, and then make allowances in your plan for the case that they just might be that crazy.

Pointless advice to myself shall do me little good in getting out of here, but nothing seems to work. I have tried using some of the shorter rafters as levers, but I can't get enough leaverage, even leaning on it with all my weight. Most of the longer ones are riddled with burns, so they won't work to shift anything with. It looks for all the world like magic was the only thing keeping this accursed place together. There are plenty of magical implements still around - I'm writing this journal entry on a sacraficial stone by the light of ceremonial candles. They smell like sandalwood and probably cost a fortune.

The prisoners are dead. Sheralia was half right - they had them stacked like logs down one of the pits. They were alive when we were there, but under a spell to keep them from moving. Sheralia said we should come back for them, and we left. They couldn't cry out for us, but I heard them anyway, damn them.

After the mages collapsed the mine shafts, the prison pit filled up with water from the river above. There wasn't supposed to be water in the side corridor. I tried to pry off the grate in the antechamber, but by the time I managed, none of them were breathing anymore. I dragged some of them up, but there's too many, and I'm tired.

It's been a long time since I've lost my lunch over a scene, but this one did it. At least the mages all left neat corpses. Nothing left of them but ash and charred robes. Sheralia's is there on the floor somewhere.

My burns are really bad this time. Poltuce from my bag helped, but I didn't have enough to cover all of it.

I'm out of food, and the air is getting stale.

I still haven't tried swimming past the corpses in the prison pit. It would make sense if there was a way out - the water had to come from somewhere. Maybe I can get into our coridor and swim out. After I've slept a while, I'll see about it. I'll have to trust my luck on the air.

-

No way out in the water.

I found a solution to my air problem. The water rushes though a crack in one of the walls and gets changed all the time, so it stays fresh enough for me to breathe.

The corpses are starting to smell. That, or it's my burns festering, I'm not sure.

I took a lot of time before I was calm enough to write this entry. I keep retching at the stench, and the only water I have to drink is the stuff in the prison pit. I still haven't found food.

Worrying away at that crack in the wall down there is the only thing I can do, because I am getting nowhere up in the cave. But by all the gods, I don't want to go into the water.

I am running out of candles to write by. When it gets dark, I don't know what I shall do. I can still hear those accursed prisoners, yelling with their eyes. I deserve everything I get for listening to Sheralia. I should never have left them there.

I wish they had screamed and cried. The silence is so much worse.

This will probably be one of my last entries, if not the very last one. If anyone finds this, take it to the Argonian Assemblage in Windhelm.

If there was ever a time for taking stock of my life, this would be it. In spite of quite a few regrets, I think I did alright. While I made mistakes, I think a lot of people are better off for my having been there. I travel too much to have had any kind of great impact on any particular place, but there are people who's lives I've touched, up here in the cold.

Scouts, Shahvee, don't mourn me too much. Neetrenaza, take care that you don't end up like me, and become bitter. You're close, my friend. Stands-In-Shallows, I imagine you'll be the least saddened by the news of my demise; you've buried enough friends before that you know the motions. Take care of them. Make sure Neetrenaza doesn't do something stupid, make sure Shahvee feels like all her hard work to stay happy isn't for nothing, and keep an eye on Scouts-Many-Marshes and and see that he doesn't get into politics. It would kill him, or make him too much of a scoundrel. Don't let that happen, Scouts. You're one of too few decent people left on the underside of Skyrim.

On that note, I have a task for you, Scouts, should you ever find this. In Darkwater Crossing, there are a couple of miners named Derkeethus, saxleel, and Annekke Crag-Jumper, a nord. If they learn of my demise, they will go after me, and the attempt will likely kill them. I want you to try and talk them out of it. See if you can get Derkeethus to help you talk Annekke down. If that doesn't work, at least get Derkeethus to stay safe when he goes to get killed looking for my corpse. Derkeethus, Annekke, if you find this, that means you did a good job of it this time. Try not to die getting out.

There are many other friends and lovers who would go to look for me, and I haven't got the candletime to write to all of them. Suffice to say I was a conniving scoundrel to the end, and I valued and cherished your frienships, your love, and your helping hands and swordarms. Thank you, my friends.

I wish I had managed to see a Hist before the end of my time, but that wasn't to be, it seems.


End file.
